Karjis

Try to clean the connector which is coming from wing to door, it's not the most reliable connector type there is. At the door side of the wire coming from the wing, there is locking pins in top and bottom of that plastic thing, find those, squeeze and try to open the connector and clean it, put new protective grease and put it back well. Might help. I had problems with mirror movements and problems solved by cleaning that connector to door. Edit: Image of the connector, a bit modified to get new speaker cables in, but that was just empty space there.

How did you do the wiring for heated seats, did you use factory heated seat wiring harness and switches (those two spaces between A/C and air circulation) or just direct wiring from fuse box with aftermarket switches?

Are you seriously off roading or was that the original filter? Filter can have huge difference, my friend replaced air filter in his really old (early 80's) VW Passat and top speed rose from 115 to 160kph, so that filter had basically lost half of that cars power. But okay, air filte didn't have about one cup of dirt.. whole air cleaner was FULL, like full vacuum cleaners dustbag

Those original car jacks are really widow makers, never put even your toes under the car when using those on some emergency situation :/ I have only got car to fall from that kind of jack once, but luckily all wheels were in place.. No one should use those, cheapest 2 ton hydraulic trolley jacks are like 20 euros and those are hundred times more stable than those boot jacks.

Sad thing to look at those nuts. I would have understood if rounding one as trying to open and got the idea, but why to destroy several.

Oh why did you paint the injector leads and ignition wires also? Didn't you take the cove off the car for painting?

Yes we did, but it's really rare so you basically have to get everything separately ordered, nothing on the stock. And mostly only parts available are parts which are shared with Civics. For some reason Honda is really often removing models from price lists here if it's not selling "enough", good example is modern (FK?) Honda Civic with Diesel engine, they removed it from the list after couple of years, after first facelift. Now you can't have it, only I-dtec to Accord or CR-V.

Those power figures couple pages earlier looks nice, I had my MB3 dynoed just for fun and it did 121bhp and 149Nm with completely stock except K&N panel air filter (resonator was not removed). Looking at that exhaust manifold I would guess that 130bhp should be quite possible without opening the engine. Just get the intake and exhaust to flow better somehow. Good luck for trying to reach that 130!

I hope I'll love the ITR Box too, can't wait it to arrive. I got the idea from your and noodels projects btw I just realised that I might not get a filter to it from local parts store.. I might need to go with K&N, don't want to double the price of every filter change for postage Oh and 6 Hamp oil-filters arrived last week.

Because it's winter, and somehow I miss my old MB3 I planned to put couple winter pictures about that, MC2 will never be that fast on ice because of wider wheels and harder suspension. But okay it takes everything back when roads are dry. Some Ice track driving on lake ice, if you look at the tracks, that Saab driver did pull that corner wide with saab-like understeer trying to keep up, from winter 2011. And another fun thing, slow speed slalom on snowy parking lot against the clock, 2009 with 195/55 15" winter wheels, didn't work that well so next winter I returned to 14 inch during winter. Aand return to start with quite tight line, with slow speed I mean that last corner was driven like 20mph with 2nd gear. First gear is just too aggressive compared to that grip. 2010 winter with 175/65 R14 GoodYear UltraGrips. But that's enough with that, within week I promise something new with Aerodeck. PS. I think I broke the photos somehow.. I try to get colours visible this evening

I finally found and bought an ITR Airbox. Just waiting for playing hide and seek with UPS courier, they are fast if they shouldn't be and really slow if you are waiting for them. Last weekend also gave the car a wash, and it took about 50 km so a bit over half an hour to get dirty again, I hate road salt.. Couple weeks ago I broke the oil filler cap, don't drop it during winter, it will fall to pieces.. But luckily one car dismantler had oil cap and also radio antenna which was in mint condition. Still to come: I'm also working on my summer rims on balcony, (another set of originals), bought can of Nitromors but now I just need warmer weather to remove the old paint. Now it has been from 0 to -10 degrees later days, a bit too cold to work at the balcony. Might also have couple tricks in my sleeve for the engine but I won't reveal those yet.

Just open and clean the switch, but don't lose the returning spring Take fine sandpaper (400-800, whatever) to clean that green oxidised stuff away from those contacts so contacts are clear metal again. All black and greenish stuff are things you wan't to get rid of. After cleaning, good coat of grease made for electric connections to protect those contacts from moisture and it should be fine for years again.

Well, at least all the seals are the same, and the piston rings are the same, so basically yes, it is.

As a complete stranger, I really don't know what to say, anything else than that we should keep this happy and supportive atmosphere alive here. All the best wishes for you Dave.

Or was it 1 screw and plastic pin on the other end?

At least with E46 BMWs it was that 6-cyl and diesel versions had battery in the boot and 4 cyl gasoline versions had smaller battery in front. E46 at least had quite deep box ready made for battery, there would be space in deck also, same space that is used by rear muffled, but on the other side of the car, but it would need sheet metal work. With the wiring of course it would need to be thicker than original, because wire is much longer, voltage drop in cabling is the key here. I did some measurements with my MB3 just for fun when replacing the battery: with 2 years old Exide X-tra 45Ah battery, there was huge voltage drop at the battery, voltage at start was just 10,5 Volts (under load) and because of that low voltage, current was somewhere like 120 Amps peak when turning the key, it was a bit lazy sounding start but not anything serious. With Optima Yellow top 38Ah (Civic-size of course), it hold the voltage at 12,2 volts under load, and because of that also start current was over 200 Amps peak. It made huge difference with starter speed, quick and easy start. Those current were peak currents, so when engine started rotating current went down quite quickly and of course engine started soon. But if you have to crank longer for some reason, current is more like 80 Amps than 200 Amps when engine is accelerated to speed that starter has the power to rotate constantly. At cold weather currents are of course higher when oil is like pudding. Even 5W-40 is almost like pudding when temp is -30C.. I'm not really sure what was the point, maybe that AWG 0 is almost a overshoot, it's thick and has (Calculated with AWG 0, 20C temp, 5 meters long CU cable) 0,32 Volts of voltage drop with 200 Amps, with 100 A it's then only 0,16 Volts of drop, AWG 2 would have drop of 0,52 Volts and it's much easier to pass through cabin, with that, voltage drop is close to original cabling at engine bay. And yes, AWG 2 handles 200 Amps for short perioids easily and 160 Amps forever without heating too hot. But don't use these for guide with audio equipment, then use thickest wire you can, it's always better for amp to have more constant voltage. I'm just speaking about starting / charging cable here. But if you wan't relocate battery for performance, you don't want that extra weight coming from overshooting cable thicknesses, copper is really heavy. Of course at least one AWG unit thicker cable if using some cheap "hifi" cables which are mostly aluminium. Copper cables can be identified with markings OFC, pure copper etc markings.. Mostly when markings have some A (CAA etc..) somewhere, it's mostly aluminium. Don't be fooled, there is also copper covered aluminium cables so be careful. And marketing that says "current flows on outer parts of cable" is somewhat misunderstanding, with low frequencies current flow throughout the cable and electricity flow is getting closer to surface only when frequencies are getting higher. Skin-effect is really effecting closer to radio frequencies than normal power distribution frequencies. And in car environment, power is DC and with power densities in cars, that effect is basically nonexisting.

Yeap that alloy knob wasn't nice even during autumn. Now during winter it would be really annoying, at least when I don't like to use gloves when driving, no matter how cold it is Last friday was a good test for the car. On morning when going to work it felt quite cold, but didn't pay so much attention to that. Jumped to my car and started it, it was somehow slow start, but started still with just like two sec cranking. I realised that something was not normal when revs rose really slowly. I got up and wen't to take engine heater lead of the socket, clock was frozen so I haven't had any heating to engine before starting. At work (2km away) At work I looked at thermometer and it was -26 Celcius. As background, we usually have electric outlets on almost every rented parking place on residential/office buildings, with some kind of timers. On my parking place there is old mechanical 24 hour clock, and it seems that it might freeze stuck sometimes.. I have Defa engine block heater, it's located under exhaust manifold and it's warming coolant during winter. Quite low power (500 ish watts) but with 1-2 hours it gets engine to hand warm temperatures and it starts easily with less wear. But okay, that showed that at least fuel injection and electrics are in good shape. No trouble from -26C with old battery (actually original Honda-battery ... so it's from '98, ).

I think I'm not doing much for the exterior, only just cleaning and waxing Okay, some painting also needed, but it's almost detailing. Driver side (LHD car, so the front door you see in pics) has small dent outwards, it might be a bit tricky to repair. There was chunk of ice formed near the lower hinge, and door was opened, so it dented the door outwards. Also damaged the paint so It needs to be fixed. It is actually visible in both pics, but it's just so small that it can't be seen with resolution that small. Bigger work is also needed with boot lid, previous owners haven't put any rust prevention to boot lid interior, so lower side is corroded. It's not visible outside but it's quite awful inside. I also think that there is need for at least soda blasting and painting for some little bits on floor before it get's worse under the car. Mainly real faults with the car is the drivers door dent, rust on boot lid and the oil consumption. My attitude for this car has been from the start, that I might need to do some work on both, the engine and the body. I'm trying to make this car fun to drive, not any museum artpiece But still, I'm sticking with quite stock look and I don't want to break anything.

Winter pic is already seen in new members section but here it is again, all in one place now on. If you pay attention to details, you see that in first pic the roof is black and in winter pic it's original. Roof was luckily covered with vinyl, not paint. It took me about one hour to peel that quite scratched vinyl off with a help of a hairdryer. Paint under that vinyl was in a really mint condition, so I think that vinyl was put on when the car was quite new. I've already bought another set of original alloys, but those needs new paint before installing. That's waiting for warmer weather.

I promised at new members section, that I'll start a project topic about my deck, and now I believe it's really a project. (And it's a project left out of hands..) Here it is in condition where i bought it. I somehow strongly dislike those black chinese el cheapo wheels, which are twice as heavy as original 15" wheels. That rear end isn't naturally sitting that low, it's because trunk is full of car parts, original intake and exhaust manifolds, ecu, some parts of resonator chamber and one set of winter wheels. First thing was that exhaust was in bad shape, it also had a notice from yearly inspection that exhaust was leaking at rear silencer. With closer look, welding was rotted on both sides of silencer. After 500 km drive with quite loud exhaust the rear end after silencer literally fell off I ordered and installed middle and rear pieces from Supersprint, so exhaust is fine now. At the same time I changed SRS exhaust manifold back to OEM manifold, just to get some ground clearance under the engine. That SRS manifold was already dented and had taken some contact with speed bumps. More problematic thing was that engine was burning oil, it had blue smoke behind the car when revving on vtec, so I changed valve stem seals and that blue smoke wasn't showing at the mirrors anymore. On a same time I also changed cam seals and all seals to valve cover. I also cleaned oil pan and changed the seal, it was dripping a bit. Some previous owner had changed gear knob to "Type-R style" metal gear know, which I replaced with original leather know. Hrr it was horrible. There was also aluminium pedal covers, which I removed during first month and replaced those with original rubber pads. Those "tuning parts" are now where they belong, in a metal scrap bin.

Dropped, well, answered coilovers because of the height, but actually all M Civic spring setups are coilovers. But okay Koni Sport Kit (springs & yellow shocks).

Well, It's true that if you get in trouble: FWD or RWD car stuck, just find someone to push you out of trouble. CR-V like semi AWD in trouble, you need another car to pull you out And if you get real 4WD, like Defender, in trouble, you need a winch and a strong tree At least in snow, problem with some "intelligent" AWD:s was that it engages rear wheel drive when front wheels are already slipping, so, when trying to move, front wheels slip and loses traction, then comes rear wheels, and only rear wheel traction is not enough, so now you are digging with four wheels. But good thing that also Honda realised that and newest CR-V (late 2012) engages AWD already from standstill, finally..

During summer it's really seldom, but now during winter time and my driving style, ABS is having some work to do Okay usually it's just ice under some wheel during braking, I have also felt that sometimes that ABS on M kicks in quite early and with quite small rotation speed differences. But okay it keeps the car really stable even in corner braking situations. But well, my winter tires are having their last winter, just 5 mm deep thread on front wheels and just Nokian Hakkapeliitta RSi:s so no metal spikes, so in my opinion those are almost summer tires. It's just too slippery on hard ice, on snow though those are okay. I'd say that RSi + snow is quite close to Summer tire + gravel kind of grip. One my Spanish friend was quite scared on snow last winter when visiting Finland, if you don't know the grip and travel 80mph on snowy road, somebody might be scared Just love the LSD though, Civic is not bad going in snow even without it, but with LSD it is a beast going through the snow. One big factor is that front suspension has a good travel. If car rises on top of snow, Civic still has some weight on front wheels and keeps on going. Still, i would love to have four wheel drive in MC, as far as i know, it could be built with old CR-V gearbox and rear diff and axles, hubs etc from older (88-91) AWD Civic, but it would be impossible to have plates on that kind of build

Umm, this year will be busy, but still, I try my best. Must do: Paint to summer wheelset and new summer tires. Cambelt Rear big bushings ARB Bushings front and back Fix the dent from drivers door small rust repairs to boot lid A/C maintenance Only visual: Drivers seat leather is a bit worn out, I already have Furniture Clinic things to fix that. Same thing with steering wheel, sunburnt parts needs a new coating. Maybe, if cleaning doesn't help, then: Piston rings and with that general cleaning and inspection to everything. Still burns oil and stem seals are already new. And for next winter: Heated mirrors Heated seats (wires, relays, buttons) I just need to find some donor car for those parts, at least the heated seat relay set is somewhat complicated. My MC2 is imported used from Germany and it misses those basic winter equipment. I think it's easiest to change mirror interiors from official Finnish import MB3 or some other model with electric mirrors, which has heated mirror glasses already, not to mess with any aftermarket heating pads. I had those thing in my MB3 and I'm really missing both.

MA/MB/MC OEM-floor mats fits very well I bought one set from Veho (Honda dealer). I think it arrived from Sweden. Bit pricey though, it was 75 euros for the black fabric mat set. Also included the hook and all bits to install it under front seat to keep driver's mat in place. MB3 didn't have it as standard.